Democrats easily won key seats in this year’s off-year elections, and exit polls say voters were focused on the cost of living when making their picks.
Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani promised to make life in New York City cheaper. Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger promised she would make it easier to buy a house in Virginia. And her New Jersey counterpart Mikie Sherrill promised to freeze utility costs.
For Democrats, addressing affordability means increasing the burden of what the government takes care of: more Medicare and Medicaid, student loan forgiveness, rent assistance, tax-funded child care, etc.
Mamdani’s victory speech encapsulated that view succinctly. After taking in 50.4% of the vote, he declared, “We will prove that there is no problem too large for government to solve and no problem to small for it to care about.”
This statement — and the thunderous applause it drew — have caused many Republicans to grimace. For former President Ronald Reagan and for older generations of Republicans, Mamdani’s declaration is a reiteration of “the nine most terrifying words in the English language”: “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.”
Traditional conservatism argues that government intervention in the free market inevitably leads to inefficiency and higher costs. It doesn’t matter how you intervene — the intervening itself will lower regular Americans’ power to buy, time and time again.
But if this is true, why did Democrats who promised affordability win decisively in November?
Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy weighed in on the debate, saying Republicans “need to focus on affordability.”
“Make the American dream affordable. Bring down costs, electric costs, grocery costs, health care costs and housing costs,” he said.
The Manhattan Institute chimed in next. The voters who elected a democratic socialist in New York City — who says he’ll give them free buses, free groceries, free child care and more — belong to “a generation of disaffected young people.”
The generation “is channeling its frustrations into resentment rather than the ambition, hustle, and drive that have long made this city a beacon of opportunity,” the institute wrote. “This disaffection is evidence they have “lost faith in capitalism” and “lost faith in themselves.”
The conservative think tank added, “Politics cannot replace faith, family, and community. Prosperity cannot simply be granted by government — it must be earned through enterprise and responsibility. And America is not broken beyond repair. We remain capable of renewal and greatness.”
Is America distinctly less affordable than in the past?
The short answer is yes, and it is especially so in cities.
Median rents in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco are several times more expensive in 2025 than they were in the 1990s. In the same time period, the average student debt, taking inflation into account, has roughly doubled.
And just in recent years, home prices have risen 60% since 2019.
The average student debt in 2025 is also about $40,000, which is twice what it was in the early 1990s.
And although median wages have risen as well, they have not risen to the same extent prices have. The median family income in 1990 was $75,360. In 2025, it was $100,800, per Statista — a 33.75% increase.
What can Republicans do to make life more affordable?
Jesse Arm, the vice president of external affairs at the Manhattan Institute, told the Deseret News, “Oftentimes, the best thing the government can do is just less.”
If Republicans want to lower the cost of owning a home, they should slash property taxes. If they want to lower energy bills, they should make it easier for the U.S. to produce more energy. If they want to lower housing prices, they should build more housing, and if they want to lower inflation, they should cut massive amounts of government spending, he said.
In an interview with The Free Press, PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel explained why he believes Democratic policies that he says tilt toward socialism will not solve the American affordability crisis — instead, they are the catalyst for the affordability crisis.
“I don’t think you can socialize housing,” Thiel said. “If you just impose rent controls, then you probably have even less housing, and eventually, it’s even more expensive.”
However, though millennials and Gen Z say they prefer democratic socialism more than older generations, Thiel believes they are actually less “pro-socialist” than they are “less pro-capitalist than they used to be.”
“I think it’s more just: ‘Capitalism doesn’t work for me.’ Or, ‘This thing called capitalism is just an excuse for people ripping you off,’” Thiel said.
Thomas Sowell on the social repercussions of bad economic policy
In an interview with the Hoover Institute, the American economist Thomas Sowell described the American welfare system’s good intentions and the social repercussions that have accompanied it.
Poor people “are better off economically because of what they’re given,” Sowell said, but he believes government aid has negatively affected American societies and families.
For example, financial aid to single mothers incentivizes single-parent households, and benefit cliffs incentivize workers to not seek higher paying jobs, he said.
“Egalitarianism as a philosophy is one thing,” Sowell said. “But the actual consequences of it are mean things like resenting other people’s good fortune. ... You can’t have a welfare state and a democratic country unless you first have a welfare state vision. And when you buy all of the assumptions for that vision, you’re buying a lot of trouble.”
In “A Conflict of Vision,” published in 1987, Sowell argues that empirical evidence shows free markets with limited central planning have produced the most prosperity, innovation and beneficial social outcomes.
Republicans should renew their love of the American dream to succeed in 2026
The Brooklyn-born historian, James Truslow Adams, coined the term “the American dream” in his 1931 book, “The Epic of America.”
He wrote, “The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position.”
Arm told the Deseret News that he believes both sides of the political spectrum are “pulling away from that kind of focus on equality and opportunity, and that makes me really nervous.”
“Hustle is central to the American dream. Hard work is central to the American dream. Meritocracy is central to the American dream,” he said. “It’s about equality of opportunity and not necessarily equality of outcome.”
In 2026, he hopes Republican candidates will follow Ramaswamy’s example of focusing on the American dream.
“I think Vivek Ramaswamy is someone whose messaging on this set of issues (the Republican approach to affordability) has been pitch perfect in the last couple of weeks, and I anticipate that he will coast to victory in the Ohio gubernatorial race on that message,” he said.